Prince of Ponies. Stacy Gregg
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Mira took a tight hold of the leather leash and felt Rolf strain with all his tiny might against her control.
“Be good!” she warned the dachshund. “Or you will not get any treats.”
It was a hollow threat and they both knew it. Mira was not the one to decide anything in this relationship. Rolf was in charge and Mira was his girl, hired by Frau Schmidt to do the dachshund’s bidding.
At half past one, Rolf had greeted Mira, as always, at the back door of Frau Schmidt’s mansion in Roseneck, and from there she and the little dog set off on his preordained Monday-afternoon outing. The first stop on their itinerary was lunch – which was where they were heading now.
Roseneck was an aristocratic neighbourhood, the pavements were broad and tree-lined, trimmed on one side with mown lawns and on the other with elegant hedges and tall fences that blocked Mira’s view of the grand houses. Rolf blazed a trail through these streets with an almost comical sense of importance. Barrel-chested, pointy of snout and floppy-eared, his belly was so low to the ground beneath his long, silken coat it was almost as if he was levitating as he trotted on his stumpy legs. His lush feathered tail dusted off the concrete behind him.
Soon they reached the shops, passing the corner café where elderly ladies like Frau Schmidt would sit and chat for hours on the white leather banquettes and dine on the dainty fruit tarts displayed in the window. Beside the pretty café was another bakery; this was the one where Mira’s mother worked. It was a very modern bread shop by German standards – her mother made Turkish breads here too and Syrian flatbreads along with the traditional German pumpernickel and rustic farm loaves and pretzels, all of it displayed side by side on wooden racks in the plate-glass window.
Mira looked in, hoping for a glimpse of her mother, who had left for work at 4 a.m., long before Mira woke. There was no sign of her, so they turned the corner and pressed on past the florist’s, the windows filled with pink and white long-stemmed roses, and then the Pets Deli, the first stop of their morning journey.
The Pets Deli was busy – as always. Dogs swarmed on the pavement and Mira had to duck and swerve as Rolf beetled through the throng, darting between the legs of the low-haunched German shepherds, diverting round the broad-shouldered Dobermanns in their studded collars, and barging past the bristle-coated wolfhounds to get in the door.
“Good morning, Frau Weiss,” Mira greeted the woman, who was slicing venison on the machine behind the counter. “Can Rolf have his usual table, please?”
Frau Weiss grunted, “It is ready. Go on through.”
Rolf did not need to be told twice. He was already heading towards the rear of the shop, where the doorway opened to reveal the courtyard restaurant.
The dachshund jumped up on to his favourite chair and Mira sat opposite him. Around them, the dogs and their owners were browsing the menu, but Rolf didn’t bother. He knew what he liked and always had the same thing.
Frau Weiss was serving at the table beside them now, fawning over a woman whose blow-dried blonde hair perfectly matched the silken coat of her Afghan hound. Frau Weiss laughed a fake, tinkling laugh as she took their order. Then she came back and, without a word to Mira, she slapped Rolf’s meal down on the table in front of him.
Perhaps she never bothered to be nice to Mira because she didn’t think the girl spoke good enough German? It was true that Mira sometimes got the odd word confused but she spoke it so much better than her mama, who still struggled to make the most basic of sentences. Mira had the advantage because she’d lived here since she was seven and had to speak German at school.
Now she was twelve and it was still Arabic that she spoke at home. When they’d lived in Sonnenallee, all the local kids spoke Arabic too. Sonnenallee, the Arab district, had been their home for the first five years when Mira’s family had arrived in Germany. As part of the refugee programme, they had been given a place to live, a tiny one-bedroom apartment for all four of them. Her mother got a job at the cake shop on the corner of Sonnenallee and Weichselstrasse, a local hangout that specialised in Middle Eastern delicacies like pistachio slice and halva. Mira and her brother and sister went to school during the day and in the afternoons they ran loose with the other kids of the neighbourhood, playing football in the park on the corner of Reuterstrasse, dangling from the climbing frame, until it was too dark to see and they were forced to go home.
Six months ago, they’d moved to Roseneck to be near her mother’s new job. Her mother had said that Mira would get used to the neighbourhood but Mira still hated it here. Her mother had always worked hard before but now it was like she didn’t exist. She’d already left for work by the time Mira woke up in the morning and she was never home until after Mira had put her brother and sister to bed at night and was asleep too. The rent cost more here, Mira’s mother said, and working long hours was the only way to make a better life. But Mira wanted to know why they couldn’t just go back to their old life in Syria. Or at the very least back to Sonnenallee, where she had friends.
In the corner of the dog café, Mira sat at the table and watched Rolf as he polished off his luncheon, relishing each bite with a little growl of delight. He ate in stages, licking the gravy off the liver and veal first, then moving on to the main dish before toothily devouring the bigger chunks of chopped-up blood sausage. Finally his pink tongue circled the dog bowl to get the very last bits and then, licking his chops, he looked up at Mira.
“Ready to go, habibi?” She smiled at him. “Come on!”
Out on the street, Rolf immediately began straining at the leash. His tummy was full and he was keen for his morning walk. And for once they had perfect timing. The bus was waiting for them at the corner.
Mira took Rolf in her arms and jumped on board. They sat like that, her cradling the dog in a seat near the front. It wasn’t a long ride. Only three stops from the shops to reach the gates that led into the forest of the Grunewald.
A paved avenue swept from the street into the car park, and from there the path turned to sandy loam and began forking off in all directions through the conifers and the birch trees. Today they were taking their usual route, which led all the way to the Grunewaldsee lake. It was going to get hot and Rolf might fancy a dip.
Once they were on the sand paths, Mira bent down and unclipped Rolf’s leash to let him loose. As soon as he was free, Rolf shot off, sprinting away and then scampering in a ragged half-circle before running straight back towards her, his little legs churning like mad, his pink tongue lolling out to one side. Mira laughed at him. It was always the same, this moment of over-excitement. Soon he’d calm down and trot along with her companionably. But first he needed to burn off some energy.
Mira watched the little dog as he bolted ahead of her to do his second sprint-and-circle-back, running at breakneck speed round the curve of the path until he was out of sight. She strode on briskly after him, expecting that when she turned the corner she would see Rolf there, panting and exhausted, heading back towards her on the path ahead. But when she came round the corner, there was nothing. The wide path that cut through the forest was empty. Rolf was nowhere to be seen.
“Rolf!” Mira called out. “Rolfie?”
She whistled for him. And then, with more urgency in her voice, she called again, “Rolf!”
The sound of yelping broke the silence of the forest. Rolf! His bark was echoing through the trees to the east of the path and he was going bonkers! Had he caught scent of something? A squirrel, perhaps? Rolf lost all common sense when he was confronted with a whiff of prey. And these woods were big. If he got away from her, it would be all too easy to lose a little dog like him!
Mira began dashing through the trees, following the dachshund’s caterwaul. Rolf’s barking had now become one long, persistent hunting yowl, which meant he must have that squirrel trapped up a tree. Were squirrels fierce? What if Rolf got into a fight with it and it bit him? Frau Schmidt would blame Mira if the little dog